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Thrifting Goodness

Once a month I allow myself a trip to my favorite thrift shop. If I go more often, I get myself into trouble. On a thunderstorm-filled afternoon last week I was able to leave work early and decided to spend this surprise gift of extra time by going thrifting. By far, the catch of the day was this vintage fabric picture made of pieced together feedsack cloth.

I could barely contain my excitement. Not only was this gem just sitting there, waiting for me, it was also half price. I am no expert on feedsack cloth, so I don't know in which era it was made. I do know that at one point, the back of the frame was covered in newsprint. Only tiny fragments remain but the phrase "radio and television" is legible, so it was framed (or re-framed) post-1930.

I am absolutely enamored with vintage crafts and sewing projects that use feedsack cloth. Making something beautiful and useful out of something so mundane really appeals to me. Especially a project like this, which is made up of all the scrap pieces that would have been left over from the dresses and kitchen towels and other necessary items that would have been made first. Nothing going to waste.

The subject matter is also interesting to me. It's domestic, but at the same time it's an exterior space. The couple looking at and reflecting on the homestead that they've built. Their little corner of the earth.

Can you imagine what it would be like if today's companies packaged their goods in a manner that gave thought to how that packaging might also be useful? If consumers chose their goods, not based on what was the bottom-of-the-barrel cheapest, but by determining which product they were able to use completely, packaging and all?